Lamentations 3:58 O LORD, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life. 1. The prophet speaks experimentally as of a matter which he had proved for himself in his own case. There is no true understanding of the truths of God except by a personal experience of them. 2. Observe how positively he speaks. "Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul." Let us, by the aid of the gracious Comforter, shake off those doubts and fears which so much mar our peace and comfort. 3. Observe how gratefully the prophet speaks, ascribing all the glory to God alone. Earth should be a temple filled with the songs of grateful saints, and every day should be a censer smoking with the sweet incense of thanksgiving. 4. How joyful Jeremiah seems to be while he records the Lord's mercy! How triumphantly he lifts up the strain! I. DIVINE PLEADING. 1. The Lord pleads our cause in the Court of Providence. The Christian may expect that in the course of providence, when he meets with trouble, God will raise up for him at different times, and in unexpected quarters, persons who will take an interest in him, and be the means of working out his deliverance. (1) Sometimes God pleads the cause of His people by silencing their enemies. When your foot has slipped — when you have spoken unadvisedly with your lips, if you have deeply repented of the sin, you may leave the matter before God, for He will either silence every dog's tongue, or turn their barkings to His glory. (2) At other times our God has pleaded the cause of His people, by raising up friends for them. He does not violate the wills of their enemies, but He wisely turns those wills into the channel of friendship. (3) You see thus, that either by silencing enemies, or else by raising up friends, God can, in providence, plead the cause of your soul; or if men should seem to have even less than this to do with it, He knows how, by special providences, to bring you out of the depth of your difficulties. No Christian man, methinks, can look back through many years of his life without observing some strange and singular workings of the Divine hand, by which, in an unexpected manner, God has wrought His deliverance. 2. Our text may be read with great comfort if we think upon the Court of Divine Law. My soul, triumph thou in thy God! This day rejoice thou with all thy might, for Christ hath prevalently pleaded thy cause, and thou art acquitted — nay, thou art brought in as meritorious, and accepted in the sight of God, through the plea of the Beloved. 3. In the third place, Jesus pleads the cause of my soul in the court of conscience, which is a minor imitation of the great Court of Heaven. Foul and vile I am, and yet I am perfect in Christ Jesus: lost, ruined, and undone in the first Adam, but saved and redeemed — made to sit in heavenly places, in the second Adam. Ah! doubts and fears! Where are ye now, when Jesus pleads in my soul? 4. Jesus pleads our cause in the Court of Heaven. A poor man once wished to have a favour of a great one. This great lord had a son — a very kind and condescending one, who spoke to the poor man, and said, "If you will write a petition to my father, he is very gracious, and he will be sure to" grant it; but that you may have no doubts about the success of your petition, give it to me, and I will take it in my own hand up to my father's house for you, and make your case my own. I win say to him, "My father, hear this poor man's petition, not for his own sake, but consider it as mine; do me the personal favour and kindness of hearing this man's prayer, as though it were my prayer; for, indeed, I make it mine:" The poor man wrote out his petition, but when he had finished it, "Alas!" he said to himself, "this will never do to present before the great one; it is so full of errors; I have blotted it with my tears, and where I have tried to scratch out a word which I have spelt wrongly, I have made it worse, and have so badly worded the whole petition, that! am afraid the great one will throw it in the fire, or never notice it." "But," said his friend, "I will write it out in a fair clear hand for you, so that there shall be no blots and no blunders; and when I have done so, I will do as I have said — I will take it in my own hand, put my own name at the bottom of it, with your name, and will offer it as our joint petition; and I will put it upon this footing, 'My father, do it for me; not for him, but for me.'" When the poor man saw his petition thus written out, and knew it was in such hands, he went his way, and made sure that the answer must come; and come it did. This is how Jesus Christ has done for you. He takes our poor unworthy prayers and amends them. 5. Jesus will plead the cause of His people, and our heavenly Father will do so too in the last great day of judgment. If you are a true Christian, and you are called to occupy a prominent post in the service of God, expect to lose your character; expect not to have the good opinion of any but your God, and those faithful ones, who, like you, are willing to bear contempt. But what joy it is for all these holy men to know that at the last God will plead the cause of their souls! II. IF THE LORD HATH PLEADED THE CAUSES OF OUR SOUL, WE SHOULD PLEAD HIS CAUSE WHILE WE HAVE ANY BREATH TO PRAY, OR A TONGUE WITH WHICH TO BEAR WITNESS FOR HIM. Beloved, there is a way of bearing witness for Christ which you must adopt — that of witnessing by your consistency of conduct. Holiness is, after all, the mightiest weapon which a Christian can wield. Ire ye holy as Christ is holy. Lastly, we can all plead for God in a private way. Oh! there is a great power in pleading for God with individuals. A man went to preach for seven summers on the village green, and good was done. Joseph sometimes listened to the preacher, but only to ridicule him. There were many souls converted, but he remained as hard as ever. A certain John who had felt the power of truth, worked with him in the barn, and one day, between the strokes of the flail, John spoke a word for truth and for God, but Joseph laughed at him, and hinted at hypocrisy and many other things. Now John was very sensitive, and his whole soul was filled with grief at Joseph's banter; so after he had spoken, feeling a flush of emotion, he turned to the corner of the barn and hid his face, while a flood of tears came streaming from his eyes. He wiped them away with the corner of his smock frock, and came back to his flail; but Joseph had noticed the tears though the other tried to hide them; and what argument could not do, and what preaching could not do, those tears through God the Holy Spirit did effectually, for Joseph thought to himself, "What! does John care for my soul, and weep for my soul? then it is time I should care and weep for it too." Beloved, witness thus for Christ! ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: O Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.WEB: Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life. |
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